You can shop here -- but there's no free lunch

It would be easier just to tell customers "Shop here, eat later." Because anything involving eating or drinking in a Wal-Mart store creates some kind of problems.

Consider soda, juice, tea, Sobes, Starbucks and assorted energy drinks in the coolers. Accessible. No one is going to tackle you the second you take one from a cooler and drag you by the ear to the nearest checkout. Honestly, I wish they would.

The soda isn't a perk for shopping here. Drink it in the store, you still have to pay for it. Spill it in the store, someone still has to clean it up. Some of our customers apparently don't get this.

Look around the store today. You can probably find a soda bottle or two that someone opened and drank, then discarded. $1.28 bottle of soda, no charge. And because there aren't enough eyes to see whether every customer pays for everything, some of them are going to walk. Most of them, actually.

What it comes down to is a lack of personal responsibility. Don't drink it if you don't intend to pay for it. Don't let your children touch, use or break what you don't expect to pay for. Please don't let your children teethe on packages, then give them to me, saying you don't want to purchase them. YUCCCHHHH! Don't have kids if discipline is a dirty word.

If I ever see this one customer coming, I'm shutting off my light or having a CSM check her out. Twice now, she's been in my line, and twice, I've wondered if I ever want to work here again. Two little brats that obviously have never seen any discipline.

1st time -- as I'm checking mom's groceries out, she's talking on the phone. Mini-mommy and her little sister are playing with everything on the shelves. They find antibacterial hand cleaner, the alcohol-based stuff. Bingo! Both sisters are covered from fingers to elbows in the stuff. It's dripping on the shelving.

"Hey, girls, that's not for trying if you're not going to buy it," I say. Mommy, still on the phone, pulls them toward the cart, giving me a dirty look and making no effort to pick up the container to buy it. A few minutes later, the girls are right back at the stuff. The older one gives me a "Nyyahh" face. I check their groceries as fast as I can.

Maybe two weeks later, they're in line again. Little one playing with stuff on the shelf, older one now trying to annoy me. Tries to spin the six-bagging-station carousel. I hold it. She backs off, I go back to bagging, she spins it again.

"Don't spin it until I'm finished filling the bag," I say. Matter-of-fact, not angrily. Enough to encourage Mom to restrain her child.

Apparently, she didn't read my comment as her cue. "Don't be rude to my child," says the enraged lioness.

"I wasn't rude to your child. I asked her not to spin the carousel. I don't want to get injured while my hand is in the bag."

"You were rude. 'Please' goes a long way."

Lots of "pleases" go through my head right then. "Please don't come in my line." "Please tie up your children." "Please learn how to parent." And especially, "please, kid, don't make that mocking smile when your mommy's stupid, because some day, mommy won't be there."

I go back to holding the carousel whenever she tries to spin it. If it takes twice as long to check out her groceries, I don't care. Maybe she won't be back -- in my line, or to this store. I can only hope.

Same with the 60-something couple that needed a heat-rub for sore muscles. I was accosted by them going to my break, and I walk them to Ben-Gay area in Health & Beauty Aids. They start opening jars and tubes, smelling them. Then the lady tries some on her arm. Hey -- every product in our store isn't a tester!

But I digress. I'm really sick of writing off stuff, like antibacterial hand cleaner, empty candy wrappers and soda bottles that people think we won't miss. We're a corporate giant. And you're just a sorry excuse for a human being that came with no morals attached. If you don't pay for it now, you'll pay for it in higher prices later.